Quote of the Day – Never Shutting Down EverQuest

I was just picking on Georgeson this week because of a quote from a year back about the idea that MMOs should never die. Of course, this week we saw SOE shut down two of them, Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures and Free Realms.

CWA is understandable. That was a tie-in with a TV show and clearly had an expiration date. But Free Realms, that was all SOE’s to do with as they pleased. Ah well.

Still, I am more likely to take him at face value when it comes to talking about the EverQuest franchise, the bedrock on which SOE rests. SOE without Free Realms is still SOE. SOE without EverQuest though? I am not sure that is an actual thing that can survive in our universe. We’re fifteen years in and the game is still playable and getting new content.

My new char, 15 years into the game

So EverQuest forever and all that. At least I expect to see EverQuest hit 20.

But I still wonder how things will play out once we have EverQuest Next in the house… probably about when EverQuest hits 20 if we keep getting updates about it at the current rate.

Two EverQuests on the scene I can fathom, but three?

I suppose it depends on what the plan is. I am pretty sure SOE figured people would move from EverQuest to EverQuest II and they would shut that down in a couple of years. Instead, people either stayed with EverQuest because they were invested or, as like as not, ended up in WoW.

Is EverQuest Next expected to coexist with its two direct predecessors? Given recent history, how long can that last? And who goes into the night first?

Maybe they can recreate EverQuest on the EverQuest Next platform. You can say that it won’t be the same, but when has EverQuest ever stayed the same for long in the last 15 years?

Hmm. Firstly at one stage we were faced with the prospect of six games in the Everquest franchise then:
the closure of Free Realms was announced,
“Everquest Next:Landmark” became simply “Landmark”,
as you say Everquest and Everquest II continue to get new content etc but so does “Legends of Norrath” (the sixth game in my list) although many would see that as a sideshow at best.

Which leads me to “Everquest Next” or, as I prefer to call it, Everquest NOT!. I do not know about you but from my chair the news about this game has dried up entirely. I am beginning to wonder if this GankPark or GriefBox will ever see the light of day. Perhaps the technical challenge of delivering an “Eve” in tights with StoryBricks AI and LOL combat is proving too much.

I imagine that EQ2 would shut down before EQ1 just because it was one of the founding fathers and people won’t let it die. Even if SOE pulled the plug, there’s still Project 1999 and the like. EQ2 on the other hand was in such direct competition with WoW that it got burned unless you were a die hard (I was, and still play it from time to time). But, as long as there’s enough people playing, they could theoretically go on forever, even with Next on the market. I guess the real question is will Next be able to kill its kin?

Everquest is only for the pure players now. Go try picking it back up (and I spent *years* in that game) – its a bunch of mish-mashed convoluted systems. I can’t really figure it out but hey, I am still logging in.

A clean recreation would win me back for sure, but doubtful that happens.I bet EQ:N hurts eq2 more than eq1. Just a hunch.r

@isey I doubt EQ NOT! will effect the current players of EQ1/EQ2 very much at all. The ”reboot” is so very different that it will not attract very many players of either game. It seems aimed at a new and much younger audience. SOE may hope to attract past and present players of EQ/EQ2 with the name, but as that is pretty much the only point of contact that is unlikely to occur.

Where EQ2 will continue to loose players is to games like TESO and Wildstar, some will come back others will stay. Overall EQ2 is in decline so is EQ1 albeit at a lower rate than EQ2.

As a regular player of both EQ and EQ2 it’s my strong impression that EQ is the stronger title. Even playing GMT hours on US server zones are frequently so busy I have to wait for spawn just like it was 2003. That never happens in EQ2.

Given the combo of F2P and automatic all-access, though, the lines between who plays what are going to be pretty blurry anyway.